A Journey of a Thousand Miles
by Esther-Channah
Summary: Tim Drake has been tracking Dick Grayson and Bruce Wayne for a very long time. Now, he's off to reunite the Dynamic Duo! Set just prior to "A Lonely Place of Dying".


Disclaimer: Tim Drake, Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson are owned by DC comics. I'm just playing in their sandbox. No financial gain on my part. As a matter of fact, I'm suffering a financial loss buying all of these comics. Suing me would be counterproductive.

Timeline: Immediately prior to A Lonely Place of Dying

Thanks to Juliet for the beta!

**A Journey of a Thousand Miles**

Deducing Batman's identity had been the easy part. Tim had come to that conclusion well over two years earlier. There were no two ways about it: the Dark Knight knew how to milk the 'urban legend' routine for all it was worth. The legitimate news organs rarely reported on the vigilante's activities. At best, a reporter might venture to state that Batman 'was allegedly instrumental' in breaking up a drug smuggling ring, or that 'an unidentified officer stated that the tip had come from Batman' or some such.

Tim grimaced as he handed over a few small bills to the grocery store cashier in exchange for the papers he had to read instead: _The National Inquisitor_, _The World Weekly, Comet, Gotham Gossip, Crosshairs…_

"This isn't for some current events class, is it, kid?" The man asked as he handed Tim back his change.

Tim shook his head. "Nossir."

The clerk continued. "Because you know this is all garbage, right?"

He ducked his head, blushing. "Not all of it," he mumbled, retreating quickly.

He clutched the plastic bag to his chest as he entered his dorm room. As he'd expected, it was empty, his roommate gone home for the holidays. Tim was stuck here while his parents were away on business. Absently, he picked up the last postcard he'd received from them. It showed a Venetian canal scene, but the postmark was from Sant Julia de Loria, Andorra.

Tim sighed. Everyone said his parents led such adventurous lives, but to hear them talk of it on the rare instances that he saw them, it seemed that they went from airport to hotel to boardroom with rarely a break in-between. Sometimes, they even skipped the hotel. It made Tim wonder why they even bothered to travel. It seemed to him like they could accomplish everything they needed to by telephone and email. And maybe then, they wouldn't keep shuffling him off to boarding schools so they could go on travels that didn't really accomplish all that much in the first place… Glumly, he considered that there were CEO's in Tokyo and Seoul who could probably recognize Jack and Janet Drake faster than he could at this point. Ah, well. Short of taking his savings, buying a ticket, and catching up to his parents in Sant Julia de Loria—assuming that they were still there—which did seem highly unlikely, Tim didn't have many options at his disposal. Sure, he could start doing the 'typical' ploys for attention: let his grades slip, cut class, maybe start smoking or drinking… but realistically, who was going to suffer most for those antics? Not his parents, that was for sure. If they even noticed, their likely reaction would be to pack him off to military school… or rehab or something.

He replaced the postcard on his desk and took _Crosshairs_ out of the bag. After more than three years, Tim had become an expert at skimming the headlines. "Cryogenically frozen woman gives birth to triplets!!" (Well that one was garbage.) "Stars predict major earthquake will hit Gotham within next five years!" (Yeah, right.) "Kryptonian graffiti discovered on moon; scientists blame long-dead interstellar juvenile delinquents!" (Drivel.) The rest of the magazine proved similarly useless to him.

_Gotham Gossip_ was next. "Bigfoot pays for Manhattan penthouse… in furs!" Tim rolled his eyes and turned the page. There. Page three. "Batman on warpath!" He read the byline and nodded to himself. The reporter was one of several whom Tim had come to trust over time. There might be a few exaggerations in the piece, given the nature of the tabloid, but by-and-large, the story was probably factual.

_Comet,_ oddly enough given its name, was _not _predicting any heavenly bodies on a collision course with the Earth this month. But there was another story about Batman. According to this one, he'd narrowly escaped an explosion down at Miller Pier. Eyes narrowing, Tim reached for the front section of _the Gotham Gazette_. Hadn't there been something about a meth lab bust…?

There had been. And, according to the _Gazette_, an "anonymous source" had 'hinted' that Batman had alerted the police to the lab's presence. Tim nodded to himself. He had corroboration, not just of the authenticity of the story in the _Comet_, but of a certain alarming trend in Batman's behavior over the last six months.

Tim unlocked his upper left desk drawer and removed the beat-up leather-bound photo album and the two scrapbooks. The album had accompanied him to every boarding school he'd ever attended. The first picture in it was one that Tim had seen so often that he was sure, even if the album disappeared that he'd be able to recall every detail from memory. It was a photograph of himself, aged two and some months, perched happily on the knee of a brightly-costumed circus youth some seven years his senior. Although he had no other pictures in that album which pertained to that date, there were other events had transpired that were also indelibly transcribed in his memory. There were other pictures and clippings about Dick Grayson in that album arranged in chronological order. Until he was eleven, he'd also kept his Batman, Robin, and Nightwing material in that album, but he was a bit older and wiser now. Most people knew that he was into gymnastics, and when he told them (not altogether untruthfully) that his interest dated from the night that he'd watched the Flying Graysons perform live, and that he'd idolized the youngest member of the trio, they understood. It also made sense that, since Dick Grayson had been adopted by Bruce Wayne, and even moreso, since the Waynes and the Drakes were both members of Gotham's high society, Tim would keep a scrapbook of articles pertaining to Gotham's 'first family'. Most of the kids Tim knew at school kept up with the 'lifestyles of the local wealthy and established'. And as for the Batman scrapbook, well, he wasn't the only person he knew who wanted to believe that the Dynamic Duo was real. The only difference was that Tim knew it for a fact.

He turned to one of the last newspaper clippings in the Wayne scrapbook: "Body of Jason Todd Wayne to be flown back to US for burial." _Jason Todd_, Tim thought. Not long after Bruce Wayne had begun adoption proceedings, a new Robin had been reported to be fighting alongside Batman. And since Jason's death… Batman had been fighting solo. And he'd been suffering for it.

Tim looked at the final pages of the Batman scrapbook again. The most recent articles all pointed to the same conclusion: Batman was going off the rails. He was becoming darker, more intense, and worryingly, more reckless. _He needed a Robin_.

Tim froze. _That was random_. Batman needed a Robin. But it was true. Without a partner, Batman was becoming more dangerous but in all the wrong ways. Batman needed a partner. And traditionally, that partner was Robin. He shook his head. After Jason, what were the odds that Batman was going to work with another kid?

But he might work with Dick again. The idea seemed to explode within his mind. The original Dynamic Duo, reunited? That… that could actually work. But… his face fell. Batman wouldn't ask for help. And Dick—Nightwing—was currently living in New York City and working with the Titans. Probably didn't have a clue what was going on—he hadn't been seen in Gotham in months. Somebody ought to tell him.

Tim stopped. _He_ could tell him. Right. Sure he could. Just hop on his bike and pedal to Manhattan, knock on Dick's door and say 'Batman needs you.' Sure.

_Well, why couldn't he? It was the holidays. He didn't have classes. The dining hall was closed. And his parents had left standing orders that he had permission to spend all or some of the holidays with friends if he so chose. Well…Dick was kind of an old friend… sort of… if he stretched it. At least he'd been friend_ly _to Tim all those years ago. Besides, school was boring when you were the only one in your grade stuck there for the holidays. _

He hesitated only a moment before he began carefully packing clothing into a knapsack. He'd have to travel light. The album would take up too much space, but the circus photo on its own wouldn't. _Photos_, he thought. Dick probably wouldn't believe him without some sort of proof of Batman's current frame of mind. His mouth went dry. Could he _get_ that kind of proof? It would mean practically tailing Batman—without being spotted. The whole idea was crazy-impossible! Except, he wouldn't really need to get that close. Maybe… maybe he could. He could try, anyway. There was no guarantee he'd even be able to _find_ Batman. People lived and worked in Gotham all the time and never caught a glimpse of him. _Only they don't know where to start looking. So, if the Batmobile is coming from Bristol, it means he's got to come into Gotham on the Aparo, right by Amusement Mile. If I wait there and then follow on the service road…_

Tim nodded to himself. It was a plan. And, he had to admit, he was getting more than a little excited at the prospect. After all, he'd never considered stalking Batman before, or biking to Manhattan, or contacting Nightwing. This actually had all the earmarks of a real adventure. And, if the truth were to be told, how many more of those were likely to come his way?

He fastened the mini-camera case onto his belt and continued to pack.


End file.
